Asphalt Paving Contractor in Fairfield, CA

What Fairfield's Clay Does to Asphalt Paving

The federal soil survey rates Capay clay and Clear Lake clay as very limited for local roads and streets. The reasons it gives are shrink-swell and low strength. Both soils can also hold standing water after a storm, and both are more than half clay near the surface.

On the east side toward Travis Air Force Base, most of the ground is Antioch and San Ysidro soils. A loamy top layer sits on a clay subsoil, and water soaks in slowly once it is wet. The hills around Rancho Solano are mapped as Dibble and Los Osos soils, on slopes of 9 to 30 percent.

So the work in Fairfield starts below the asphalt. We shape the grade so water sheds off, then build the aggregate base in compacted lifts. Where water sits or runs under a driveway, grading and drainage work comes before any paving.

Driveway Paving in Fairfield's Older and Newer Neighborhoods

Fairfield grew outward from downtown, and the Census numbers show it. In the tract around downtown, the median home dates to 1956. In the tracts around Paradise Valley and Rancho Solano, the medians are 1993 and 1994.

In Cordelia, near where I-80 and I-680 meet, the tract medians are 1999 and 2004. The tract around the Fairfield-Vacaville train station is newer still, at 2008. Across the city, about seven in ten homes are detached houses, and nearly four in ten are rented.

That spread changes the job from street to street. An older driveway with a failed base needs a tear-out and a new base. A newer one on a sound base may only need an overlay or patching. We pave and repair driveways for owners and for landlords with rentals in the city.

Who Approves a Driveway Apron in Fairfield?

The apron where a driveway meets the street usually sits in the public right-of-way. In Fairfield, installing or widening a driveway apron needs an encroachment permit from the Public Works Department. Curb and sidewalk work next to a city street is on the same list.

Much of Suisun Valley and Green Valley lies outside city limits, in unincorporated Solano County. There, a driveway onto a county road needs a county encroachment permit. For a permanent driveway connection, the county's standard conditions call for at least 12 feet of width. The surface is 2 inches of asphalt concrete over 6 inches of aggregate base, or 5 inches of concrete.

Parking Lot Paving in Fairfield

About one Fairfield home in six is in a building with five or more units. Recent projects include warehouses along I-80 and apartments in Green Valley. We pave lots for apartment owners, HOAs, churches and businesses across the city.

Our commercial paving work runs in sections so a business can stay open. We grade each lot so water drains off, then stripe the stalls and the ADA access aisles. Storm drains here carry runoff untreated to local creeks and the Suisun Marsh, per the sewer district. Old asphalt and millings get hauled off the site.

Fairfield's weather station averages about 60 days a year at 90 degrees or hotter. Fresh asphalt needs time to cool before cars park on it. A new section stays closed until it cools, and then the next one starts.